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Friday, March 23, 2007
K&I Diner Slings Big Portions of Burrito Special, Pancakes
By Andrea Lin
For the Journal
Pancakes so big they make hubcaps jealous, waitresses who bridge the fascinating zone between efficient and tempermental, and one local legend called simply, The Travis. This experience only comes to those who venture far south of Central on Broadway Avenue to the K&I Diner.
On March 2, 1960, Irene Warner opened Grandma's K&I Diner on Broadway in the heart of a promising industrial district. Although Irene is now gone, you can fulfill the promise by heading down and having a hearty breakfast or lunch.
The building is wood-sided and red, the sign large and colorful to beckon hungry souls, and the parking lot full of pickup trucks flanking the lone imported car— mine. Three huge dining rooms inside will accommodate any lunch rush, but it took me a few visits to locate them, so engaged was I with gazing at the kitchen memorabilia adorning the walls, from old mixing devices to tins of saltines.
Slurping diner coffee (whose essential qualities are: hot, brown and endless), my menu-gazing eye stops on one lunch plate in particular: Ham Steak with Peaches ($6.75). Curiosity gets the best of me, bolstered by my large appetite. Soon I am crunching away on an iceberg-dominated side salad, still wondering about those peaches.
You've probably tasted or at least heard of two local fast-food concoctions— the Disaster and the Twister. Each is served at its local chain and is usually ordered in fractions of a whole, so huge are the portions. What you might not know is that they have a rich ancestry, and wouldn't have existed were it not for the K&I.
In 1971, a patron of Grandma's ordered up such a weird combination of burrito, chile and fries that it ultimately came to bear his name. The Travis, which can be ordered in sizes that feed one person on up to a sports team, starts with a gigantic burrito smothered in chile, topped with cheese and completely covered in hot french fries. Years later, other local renditions of The Travis started popping up in Albuquerque burger joints and are still enjoyed by those who may have never even tried the original.
My companion is putting forth a good effort on his half-Travis ($6.75) while I gaze at my plate: juicy ham steak topped with half-orbs of peach and smothered in brown gravy. It actually looks really good, and one clean plate later, I concede that the flavor combination is strange enough to work. Unfortunately, the side of my plate still wears the green beans that accompanied the ham, limp and grayish, barely worth one bite.
Another combination I can recommend for any time of day is a side of carne adovada ($3) and one pancake ($2). Remember the hubcap comment above before you think that a solitary pancake cannot fill you up. Deep yellow and with a density approaching cornbread, one drizzling pass with the syrup is all that is needed for embellishment. If butter were provided I would happily slather it on, but don't even consider using the tub of "buttery spread" to desecrate this perfect cake.
The carne adovada, while not possessing the raw heat of other red chiles in town, is porky and tender just the same and draped in a smooth coating of its dark red sauce. Get this with the pancake and you could leave stuffed for around five bucks— a good thing since it seems K&I no longer offers dessert.
Finally, did my companion finish his gargantuan half-Travis? With style, yes, he did.
K&I Diner
***
LOCATION: 2500 Broadway SE, 243-1881
HOURS: 6 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Mondays-Saturdays; 8 a.m.-2 p.m. Sundays
NO ALCOHOL